Contrast is terrific – and no town in Texas offers quite the kind of contrast Fort Worth does. From cowboys to culture, museums to honky tonks, this city is singular.
Let’s start with the cowboys. Billy Bob’s Texas bills itself unabashedly as the “World’s largest Honky-Tonk,” a place where longneck beer bottles are the dominant architecture, kickin’ country music reigns, and the salsa will simmer your socks off. If you crave cowboy culture, this is its Mecca. Performing May 27 is Three Dog Night.
To Texans (this writer is one of them) there’s nothing incongruous about kicking back at Billy Bobs on Friday night and marveling at the work of Michelangelo Saturday morning, nothing at all. Fort Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum is where you’ll want to go. The collection ranges from antiquity to the 20th Century, and includes more than a smattering of European masterworks by the likes of Michelangelo, Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Poussin, Fra Angelico, and Picasso.
Art encompasses far more than European classics. If it’s art of the American West you’re after, there’s no better showcase than the Amon Carter Museum. This is home to more than 400 works by Fredric Remington and Charles M. Russell. Enough said. The Amon Carter houses a preeminent collection of paintings and sculptures that chronicle the real American West, not the sort you see at the movies. The price of all of this? The willingness to immerse yourself in another world for a while. Admission is free.
The Kimbell and the Carter are located in the city’s Cultural District, and within walking distance of one another.
Fort Worth is outrageously accessible. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the continent’s fourth busiest, is American Airlines’ prime hub.
Story by Jerry Chandler
(Image: davidw)
